55 Things You Need To Know About The New Pope, Leo Xiv

Seventeen popes have presided over the Catholic Church since the founding of the United States. None of those men was from America. That changed Thursday when Robert Francis Prevost, son of Chicago’s South Side, emerged onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and spoke, in Italian, the words: “La pace sia con tutti voi.” Peace be with you all.

The man who is now known as Leo XIV becomes the 267th Bishop of Rome and the successor to Francis, one of the most liberal and controversial Catholic leaders ever. Leo’s own politics are thought to be more moderate. On Thursday Leo, 69, spoke in welcoming terms: “We can be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges, that is always open to receive everyone.”

It’s been said an American has never been chosen pope because the United States already holds such sway over the world politically, culturally and economically, that it would be too much to give an American immense religious power as well. No doubt, Leo’s global influence will be measured constantly by the church’s more than 1 billion adherents. It might be his domestic influence — including over one very prominent and very conservative Catholic official in the White House, Vice President JD Vance — that bears the most attention. In February, a social media account under then-Cardinal Prevost 's name challenged Vance on X, repeating a headline from The National Catholic Reporter: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

Here — culled from decades of articles, speeches, social media posts and interviews with family and acquaintances — is an intimate portrait of the new pope, who assumes power at a moment when the church’s role in modern life is as politically charged as it has ever been.

1.

Robert Francis Prevost was born on September 14, 1955, at Mercy Hospital at 25th Street and Prairie Avenue on the South Side of Chicago.

2.

His father, Louis Marius Prevost, is of French and Italian descent, and his mother, Mildred Martínez, is of Spanish descent.

3.

His father’s parents were from France.

4.

His mother’s parents had Creole roots in New Orleans and were described in historical records as “Black or mulatto.”

5.

He’s the youngest of three brothers and grew up in Dolton, Illinois, just south of Chicago’s city limits.

6.

His father was a school superintendent. His mother was a librarian.

7.

His family attended St. Mary of the Assumption Parish.

8.

He sang in the choir and served as an altar boy.

9.

In grade school at St. Mary’s — where, in the days before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, students attended daily mass, which was still read in Latin — he was known as the best student in his class.

10.

St. Mary’s is closed now.

11.

“We used to pray with our hands, you know, our fingers pointing to heaven, and, after a while, you get tired of doing that, and you just want to fold them over,” a former classmate told the Chicago Sun-Times.“Robert Prevost never folded his hands over ….”

12.
As a kid, the pope often played “pretend priest,” his older brother John Prevost told the Chicago Tribune. He would set up a table draped in a white cloth and recite prayers. “He did that all the time. He took it totally serious, it was not a game,” John said.

13.

He graduated from Villanova University outside of Philadelphia in 1977. He was a math major and also studied philosophy. Villanova later awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities.

14.

He joined the Order of St. Augustine in 1977. He made his first profession in 1978. He made his solemn vows in 1981.

15.
He earned his Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982 and was ordained a priest the same year in Rome.

16.

The newly ordained Father Prevost was photographed shaking the hand of Pope John Paul II. He received a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

17.

He obtained his licentiate in 1984 and was sent to the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985.

18.

He defended his doctoral thesis on “The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine” in 1987 and was appointed vocation director and missions director of the Augustinian Province of “Mother of Good Counsel” in Olympia Fields, Illinois.

19.

Augustinians, the order Leo was schooled in since he attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Michigan, call themselves “active contemplative” and are known for their work in education and as missionaries and for their devotion to communal living.

20.

He is, according to the Vatican News, the first Augustinian Pope.

21.

Leo began to climb the ranks of church leadership early in his career. He led the Augustinian order in the Midwest for several years beginning in 1999.

22.

In 2002, he became prior general of Augustinians internationally, a position he held for a decade.

23.

The new pope has lived only a third of his life in the United States, instead spending much of the rest of it in Europe and Latin America.

24.

He became a naturalized citizen of Peru in 2015.

25.

Also in 2015, he was named the Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru.

26.

He votes in Illinois. According to the Will County clerk, he voted in the general elections in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2024, and he was registered as a Republican in the primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016, records show.

27.

In a 2012 address to bishops, titled the “Counterculture of the New Evangelicization,” he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel.” He cited the “homosexual lifestyle,” abortion and euthanasia. “When religious voices are raised in opposition to these positions, mass media can target religion, labeling it as ideological and insensitive in regard to the so-called vital needs of people in the contemporary world,” he said.

28.

“He was always friendly and warm and remained a voice of common sense and practical concerns for the Church’s outreach to the poor,” said the Rev. Mark Francis, who attended seminary with Prevost. “He has a wry sense of humor, but was not someone who sought the limelight.”

29.

But like his predecessor, he has not shied from using mass media to articulate his concern for immigrants and the poor. Earlier this year, a social media account under his name reposted criticism of President Trump’s treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

30.

This past February, then-Cardinal Prevost challenged Vice President JD Vance on X, repeating a headline from The National Catholic Reporter: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

31.

On Thursday, Vance, who joined the Catholic church in 2019, congratulated Leo, saying on X, “I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church. May God bless him!”

32.

In 2017, the same account under Prevost’s name retweeted a post by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy(D), in which Murphy pressured his fellow senators to act on gun control and wrote, “your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers.”

33.

Also in 2017, the account under Prevost’s name retweeted a statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning hate in response to the deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.

34.

The account also in 2017 reposted a pro-DACA tweet from Sister Helen Prejean.

35.

In 2023, then-Cardinal Prevost expressed skepticism about ordaining women as Catholic clergy, repeating a line Francis often used about the risk of “clericalizing” women.

36.

Like many high-ranking church officials, he has not escaped criticism for his handling of child sex abuseby members of the clergy.

37.

The Augustinians were one of the last Catholic orders to publish a list of “credibly accused” priests.

38.

Prevost came under more direct criticism after a Chicago Sun-Times article revealed that, in 2000, an accused priest had been sent to live in an Augustinian monastery located near an elementary school and that church officials had not notified the school. Prevost was the head of the Augustinian order in the Midwest at the time.

39.

Leo was elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023 and given control of the influential Vatican Dicastery for Bishops, the office tasked with advising the pope on bishop appointments around the world.

40.

Along with English and Spanish, Leo speaks Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.

41.

He said last year that “the bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom.”

42.

Leo took his papal name from a line of popes that began with Leo the Great, who led the church from 440 to 461. Leo XIII, the last pope to take the name, presided from 1878 to 1903.

43.

“By selecting the name Leo, the new pope signaled his solidarity with working people and gave a nod to his South Side working-class roots,” according to Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter. “The previous pope to bear that name, Pope Leo XIII, was known as ‘The Pope of the Workers.’”

44.

“Leo XIII is considered the father of Catholic social teaching,’’ saidys Margaret Thompson, an associate professor of history at Syracuse University. “This signals a potential emphasis on justice, labor and the church’s role in the modern world.”

45.

Leo was not President Donald Trump’s first choice for pope. Trump had suggested another American: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, a perceived ally of Trump’s who gave the invocation at his second inauguration. (Leo might not even have been Trump’s second choice, as Trump had also suggested he himself might want to be pope. Trump published a photoshopped image of himself in papal vestments.)

46.

Nevertheless, Trump congratulated Leo on Thursday: “It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope,” he wrote on Truth Social. “What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”

47.

Former President Barack Obama congratulated him, too, writing on X: “Michelle and I send our congratulations to a fellow Chicagoan, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV. This is a historic day for the United States, and we will pray for him as he begins the sacred work of leading the Catholic Church and setting an example for so many, regardless of faith.”

48.

The new pope frequents Aurelio’s Pizza when he visits home.

49.

“I consider myself quite the amateur tennis player,” Prevost said in an interview shortly after he became a cardinal.

50.

The new pope loves playing Wordle and Words with Friends. “It’s something to keep his mind off life in the real world,” said his brother John.

51.

John Prevost, his older brother, said the idea to use Leo as a papal name “came up while the pair played the online games Words With Friends and Wordle,” according to WGN in Chicago.

52.

His father was a Cardinals fan, and his mother was a Cubs fan, but the new pope is a White Sox fan, according to MLB.com, CBS News Chicago and elsewhere.

53.

Neighbors in Dolton predicted the papacy was in his future. “The interesting thing is way back when he was in kindergarten or first grade, there was a parent, a mom, across the street — one across the street that way and another down the street,” his brother John told WGN on Thursday. “Both of them said he would be the first American Pope, at that age.”

54.

Still, he didn’t think he’d be pope. “He didn’t think so,” John said. “I kind of did, because what I was reading and what I was hearing that there were three outstanding candidates that were in first, second and third place: the cardinal from the Philippines, the secretary of state and him.”

55.

As he climbed the ranks of the church, though, his posture started to shift, his brother John told TheNew York Times. “It was ‘absolutely not, absolutely not, God forbid,’” he said. “And then it became, ‘Well, if it’s what God wants, then we’ll deal with it.’”

Dylon Jones contributed to this report.